Journalists Killed in 2000: 24 ConfirmedBangladesh: 2
Mir Illias Hossain, Dainik Bir Darpan, January 15, 2000, Jhenaidah
Hossain, 43, editor of the newspaper Dainik Bir Darpan, was assassinated in the southwestern town of Jhenaidah. According to the English-language daily The Independent, published from Dhaka, three unidentified assailants riding a motorcycle fired from close range at Hossain and a friend as they were talking outside a shop. Hossain was killed instantly. His friend, Alfaj Uddin, died en route to the hospital.
Dainik Bir Darpan had been outspoken against left-wing militant activity in the area, arguing that the leftist underground should abandon violence and engage in the democratic process. Hossain himself wrote numerous articles criticizing local militants for ignoring the needs of the rural population.
Although both Hossain and Alfaj Uddin had been active in the Sramajibi Mukti Andolan, a radical leftist organization working for more equitable land distribution, CPJ sources believe Hossain was targeted for his journalistic work.
Shamsur Rahman, Janakantha, July 16, 2000, Jessore
Rahman, a special correspondent for the Bengali-language national daily Janakantha and a frequent contributor to the BBC's Bengali-language service, was killed at around 8:20 p.m. when two armed men entered his office and fired at his head and chest from point-blank range. The 43-year-old journalist was working alone in his office on Jail Road in central Jessore when the assailants arrived. The gunmen reportedly fled the scene immediately.
Rahman was pronounced dead on arrival at Jessore General Hospital.
Jessore, which is close to the Indian border with southwestern Bangladesh, is a center for smuggling operations. Rahman regularly covered the activities of criminal gangs and armed political groups in the region. Sources at Janakantha told CPJ that he had periodically received death threats in response to his reporting.
Police blamed Rahman's murder on a smuggler's gang based in nearby Khulna. A high-profile investigation led to a series of arrests, but all the suspects had been released by year's end, according to CPJ sources.
Brazil: 1
Zezinho Cazuza, Rádio Xingó FM, March 13, 2000, Canindé de Sáo Francisco
Cazuza, a journalist with Rádio Xingó FM in Canindé de Sáo Francisco, a municipality in the northeastern state of Sergipe, was shot dead after leaving a party.
Two days later, police arrested José Ferreira Melo, also known as Zé de Adolfo, who confessed to killing Cazuza. Melo told police that the mayor of Canindé, Genivaldo Galindo da Silva, had offered him 3,000 reales (approximately US$1,500) to kill Cazuza, and that he had bought the murder weapon with the 500 reales ($US250) that the mayor paid him as an advance.
Cazuza had persistent criticized the mayor, denouncing his alleged corruption and malfeasance on a daily basis. According to the Brazilian magazine ISTOÉ, Galindo had threatened publicly to kill the journalist.
Colombia: 3
Juan Camilo Restrepo Guerra, Radio Galaxia Estéreo, October 31, 2000, Sevilla
Restrepo, a community radio station director, was shot dead in northwestern Colombia. Government investigators told CPJ that he was apparently murdered in retaliation for his sharp criticisms of the local administration.
Restrepo, 26, had headed Radio Galaxia Estéreo in Sevilla, a village in the municipality of Ebejico, for the last one-and-a-half years. He was also chairman of the village council, which owned the radio station.
On October 31, the murderer summoned Restrepo to a meeting in the nearby village of Aragón. Restrepo's brother drove him to the rendezvous on a motorbike and actually witnessed the killing. He declined to make a statement to the authorities and went into hiding, according to a relative.
Restrepo was shot at least five times, once through the head, according to a local source who did not wish to be identified. The source told CPJ that Restrepo presented a variety of music shows on Galaxia but claimed he had not been involved in news-gathering and had never had any problems with local right-wing paramilitary groups as a result of his work at the radio station or on the village council. But a government investigator based in the area said initial inquiries showed Restrepo had used his radio broadcasts to discuss several cases of alleged corruption by officials in Ebejico.
Restrepo completed two years of a five-year university degree program in communications studies in Medellín. He worked initially doing odd jobs and later as a presenter in the Medellín studios of the nationwide RCN radio network before returning to his home village of Sevilla.
Gustavo Rafael Ruiz Cantillo, Radio Galeón, November 15, 2000, Pivijay
Ruiz, a correspondent for the regional station Radio Galeón, was killed by gunmen with two close-range shots to the head as he crossed the market square in the northern town of Pivijay at around dusk, police and colleagues said.
Police said they were still investigating the identity of the attackers. But senior colleagues at Radio Galeón, based in the port city of Santa Marta, alleged that Ruiz had been killed by members of a right-wing paramilitary group that operates in and around Pivijay, in central Magdalena Province.
These sources told CPJ that the group was not linked to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), a nationwide alliance of right-wing groups, but was rather a gang of hired gunmen financed by "the rich people in the area."
"That whole area is virtually off limits for the press, the police, and the army. It's an island where an illegal group is in charge," one of Ruiz's colleagues said.
One of the dead man's relatives told local journalists that gang members had threatened Ruiz on two recent occasions, telling him to stop reporting bad news about Pivijay and to "give up that big mouth's job."
Ruiz had worked for Radio Galeón on a free-lance basis for the last three years, covering politics, crime, and general news in and around Pivijay. He was a self-taught journalist who started his radio career about 15 years ago at Radio Libertad, another regional station headquartered in the port city of Barranquilla. Ruiz also worked with a community radio station in Pivijay and ran a small grocery store in the town.
Alfredo Abad López, La Voz de la Selva, December 13, 2000, Florencia
Abad, director of Voz de la Selva (Voice of the Jungle), a local affiliate of the national Caracol radio network, was killed by two gunmen on a motorcycle early in the morning as he was saying goodbye to his wife outside their home in the southern Colombian city of Florencia.
His murder came two weeks after a colleague, Guillermo León Agudelo, was stabbed to death by two men who had forced their way into his home.
Florencia police chief Col. Henry Calderón told CPJ that Abad, 36, was sitting in his car talking to his wife at 5:50 a.m. when two men drove up on a red motorcycle and fired a volley of bullets at point-blank range from a 9mm semiautomatic pistol and a .38 revolver. He was hit by at least four shots in the stomach, chest, and head.
Florencia, in southern Caquetá province, is a former stronghold of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a Marxist guerrilla organization. More recently, the town has become a power base for an anti-Communist paramilitary group linked to Carlos Castaño's United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC).
Abad had been director of Voz de la Selva for the last two years, according to a colleague. Previously, he worked as a reporter for RCN, a rival radio network. Local sources concurred that paramilitary gunmen had murdered Abad because of his work as a journalist, although the suggested motives differed.
One source told CPJ that Abad was probably killed for investigating the murder of his colleague Agudelo. But according to the local Foundation for Press Freedom (FLIP), various local sources attributed the killing to Abad's most recent broadcast, which discussed the government's decision to cede a Switzerland-sized chunk of territory to the FARC. The station had been threatened by the paramilitaries on two occasions a year earlier, FLIP reported.
Guatemala: 1
Roberto Martínez, Prensa Libre, April 27, 2000, Guatemala City
Martínez, a photographer for the daily Prensa Libre, was shot and killed by private security guards in Guatemala City. Two other journalists were injured in the incident.
Martínez was shot while covering a demonstration against a bus fare increase. During the demonstration, private security guards opened fire on protesters who were trying to loot an auto parts store. Journalists at the scene detained the two security guards and turned them over to police, according to CPJ sources and press accounts.
Martínez, 37, was hit twice and later pronounced dead at the San Juan de Dios hospital. A woman standing close to Martínez was also killed. Christian Alejandro García, a cameraman for the television news program "Noti7," and Julio Cruz, a reporter with the Guatemala City daily Siglo Veintiuno, were hospitalized with injuries.
At the time of the attack, Martínez was carrying a camera and was surrounded by colleagues who also carried cameras and other professional equipment, clearly identifying them as journalists.
Haiti: 1
Jean Léopold Dominique, Radio Haïti Inter, April 3, 2000, Port-au-Prince
Dominique, the outspoken owner and director of the independent station Radio Haïti Inter, was shot dead by an unknown gunman who also killed the station's security guard, Jean Claude Louissaint.
Shortly after 6 a.m., Dominique arrived at Radio Haïti Inter to host the 7 a.m. news program, according to CPJ sources in Haiti. After Louissaint opened the gate to the station's premises, located on the road from Port-au-Prince to the suburb of Pétion-Ville, Dominique parked his car inside. As he was about to enter the radio station, a single gunman entered the compound on foot and shot him seven times.
The gunman then fired two shots at Louissaint before escaping in a Jeep Cherokee whose driver had been waiting for him outside the compound. Minutes after the attack, Dominique's wife, Michele Montas, arrived at the station in a separate car and found the wounded bodies of her husband and Louissaint. They died soon afterwards at the Haitian Community Hospital in Pétionville.
Witnesses saw the killer near the station before Dominique's arrival, although his weapon was apparently not visible at that time.
Dominique, 69, was Haiti's most prominent political journalist and a veteran advocate of free speech. He was also considered one of President René Préval's close political allies. At year's end, police were holding four suspects in the case, according to Montas.
India: 1
Pradeep Bhatia, The Hindustan Times, August 10, 2000, Srinagar
Bhatia, a photographer for the Indian newspaper The Hindustan Times, was one of at least 12 people killed in a bomb attack in the Kashmir capital, Srinagar. Six other journalists died in the blast.
The militant Kashmiri separatist group Hezb-ul Mujahedeen claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement issued from its headquarters in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.
Hezb-ul Mujahedeen spokesman Salim Hashmi was quoted in the August 11 edition of The Hindustan Times as saying, "We are deeply grieved over the death of a press photographer and injuries to some journalists." He said the attack had targeted Indian security forces.
However, the choreography of the bombing seemed certain to endanger journalists.
Shortly after noon on Thursday, August 10, a grenade was thrown toward the entrance of the State Bank of India, near Residency Road in central Srinagar. This initial blast lured journalists and security forces to the area and was followed about 15 minutes later by the detonation of a powerful car bomb within a few feet of the crowd.
Bhatia, 31, died of shrapnel wounds to his heart, according to the Indian newspaper The Asian Age. Including Bhatia, nine journalists have been killed in Kashmir since 1989, when a long-running conflict between Muslim separatists and Indian government forces became a full-scale civil war.
Mozambique: 1
Carlos Cardoso, Metical, November 22, 2000, Maputo
Cardoso, editor of the daily fax newsletter Metical, was shot dead as he left Metical's offices in the capital, Maputo.
After two vehicles cut off Cardoso's car, two unidentified assassins opened fire with AK-47 assault rifles, killing him instantly and seriously wounding his driver, according to local and international news reports.
The Mozambican government quickly condemned Cardoso's assassination and promised to carry out a full investigation.
Cardoso, 48, was an experienced investigative journalist who had become one of Mozambique's foremost media personalities. He was internationally acclaimed for his groundbreaking reporting on political corruption and organized crime in Mozambique, a country that is still recovering from a brutal, 17-year civil war.
Earlier in his career, Cardoso served as editor and later director of the Mozambique state news agency AIM, from which he resigned in 1989. Before founding Metical in 1998, Cardoso ran another independent fax newsletter, Mediafax, which he launched in 1992. He sympathized politically with the ruling FRELIMO party but often lambasted the government in his editorials.
One week before his death, Cardoso started a campaign against what he called the "gangster faction" in FRELIMO, which he accused of provoking recent political violence in the country. Metical had also been reporting aggressively on alleged wrongdoing at the Mozambique Commercial Bank (BCM), according to the London-based anti-censorship organization ARTICLE 19.
On the day of Cardoso's assassination, unknown attackers slashed the tongue of Radio Mozambique journalist Custadio Rafael for "speaking too much," according to news reports. Rafael had also been investigating the BCM scandal.
Local human rights groups, government officials, and opposition leaders all condemned the killing. Outside Mozambique, the U.S. State Department, the European Union, and several African nations denounced Cardoso's murder as a serious setback to press freedom in Mozambique.
On November 24, a group of 500 outraged local journalists and citizens marched from the headquarters of the Mozambican Journalists Union in downtown Maputo to the site of Cardoso's assassination in the suburb of Polana.
In March 2001, Mozambican authroities arrested Momade Abdul Satar, his brother Ayob Abdul Satar, and Vincente Ramaya, a local bank official, and charged them with ordering Cardoso's murder. Police also arrested three young men from the Maputo underworld alleged to have carried out the assassination. Both the Satars and Ramaya were involved in a money laundering scandal at BCM dating back to 1996, which Metical covered aggressively. Authorities said the Satars and their accomplices killed Cardoso because of Metical's coverage of that banking fraud. But few in Mozambique and abroad are convinced.
The accused remain in a Maputo penitentiary pending trial.
Pakistan: 1
Sufi Mohammad Khan, Ummat, May 2, 2000, Badin
Khan, an investigative reporter with the Karachi daily Ummat, was shot dead by alleged drug trafficker Ayaz Khatak in the southern district of Badin, near the Indian border.
Khan, 38, had a reputation for aggressive reporting on local drug trafficking and organized prostitution. In mid-April, he wrote an article alleging that Khatak, a resident of the village of Shadi Large, Badin District, was involved in drug trafficking. On April 30, Khatak visited Khan's home, also in Shadi Large, and threatened to kill him, according to the editor of Ummat. Khan, who had received many threats in the past and had been physically assaulted twice in the previous six months, ignored the warning and filed a story on Khatak's alleged involvement with a local prostitute that ran in the May 2 edition of Ummat.
Sometime before noon that day, Khatak and three companions stopped Khan after he left his home by motorcycle. "I told you I would kill you," Khatak reportedly said before opening fire. As Khan lay dying from multiple gunshot wounds, Khatak and his accomplices fled the scene in a white car.
About a 30 minuted after the killing, Khatak surrendered to police in the nearby village of Khoski, and the local press widely covered his confession. Police also suspected the involvement of the powerful Arbab family, which allegedly ran a prostitution ring out of Shadi Large that smuggled women from Punjab Province and sold them across the border in India. After Khan began covering this story, family members tried unsuccessfully to buy his silence. When Khan continued to write critical stories about the Arbabs, they filed a defamation case against him and his newspaper.
Philippines: 2
Vincent Rodriguez, DZMM Radio, May 23, 2000, Sasmuan
Rodriguez, a correspondent in Pampanga Province for the Manila radio station DZMM, was killed on assignment near the town of Sasmuan when guerrillas ambushed the boat convoy in which he was traveling. Rodriguez was shot in the leg and then sustained a fatal skull fracture when his boat crashed into the riverbank.
Rodriguez was covering a tour of village development projects with Sasmuan mayor Catalina Bagasina and Jojo Osorio Ejercito, son of Philippine president Joseph Ejercito Estrada. The attack occurred on the Malusac River, about 50 kilometers (30 miles) north of Manila.
The Rebolusyonaryong Hukbong Bayan (RHB), a breakaway faction of the leftist rebel New People's Army, claimed responsibility for the attack in an interview with a CPJ source. An RHB spokesman apologized for Rodriguez's death and said local police were the intended target.
Olimpio Jalapit, Jr., DXPR Radio, November 17, 2000, Pagadian City
Jalapit, host of local radio station DXPR's top-rated morning program, "Lampornas," was killed in Pagadian City, Zamboanga del Sur Province, as he was leaving a parent-teacher association meeting.
The journalist had received numerous death threats over the years. At 9 a.m. on the morning of his death, he received the text message "I will kill you today" on his cellular phone, according to a translation published by The Philippine Daily Inquirer. At 11:20 a.m., an unidentified gunman riding tandem on a motorcycle shot the journalist in the back of the head.
Jalapit, 34, was Pagadian City's leading media personality. He was known as a hard-hitting commentator whose work did not spare the powerful.
CPJ sources believed Jalapit was murdered as a result of his frank on-air discussions of sensitive issues such as political corruption, illegal gambling operations, the drug trade, and armed separatist movements in the southern Philippines.
Just days before his murder, Jalapit was suspended from hosting "Lampornas" for one week, beginning November 13, after Environment Secretary Antonio Cerilles and his wife, Representative Aurora Cerilles, registered a complaint about the program with the Manila headquarters of Radio Mindanao Network, of which DXPR is an affiliate. The journalist was on his way to a meeting with Representative Cerilles when he was killed. Both Antonio and Aurora Cerilles have denied any involvement in the murder.
The National Bureau of Investigation led a probe into the killing but had not made any arrests at year's end.
Russia: 3
Vladimir Yatsina, ITAR-TASS, February 20, 2000, Chechnya
Yatsina, a photographer with the Russian news agency ITAR-TASS, was killed in Chechnya by Chechen militants who had taken him hostage. Two former hostages, Alisher Orazaliyev from Kazakhstan, and Kirill Perchenko from Moscow, reported the killing in statements recorded by Amnesty International after their release at the end of February.
According to their accounts, Yatsina was suffering from food poisoning and foot pain and fell behind the other hostages during a forced march from the town of Urus-Martan to the mountains of Shatoi. The Chechen guards then shot him dead. Orazaliyev and Perchenko saw his body the next day when they returned along the same road.
Yatsina was kidnapped in the Ingush capital, Nazran, on July 19, 1999. A month later, the kidnappers contacted his family and demanded a ransom of US$2 million. In November, the kidnappers contacted ITAR-TASS and demanded the same amount.
Orazaliyev and Perchenko said the kidnappers were a well-organized group of around 70
Chechens. They believed their capture was motivated by the hope of economic gain.
Kidnapping has become a major source of financing for criminals and militant groups in Chechnya. As a result, hundreds of civilians have been held captive over the last four years.
Yatsina, 51 joined ITAR-TASS in 1979.
Aleksandr Yefremov, Nashe Vremya, May 12, 2000, Chechnya
Yefremov, a photographer for the western Siberian newspaper Nashe Vremya, was killed in Chechnya when the military jeep he was riding in was blown up by a remote-controlled mine, according to Galina Golovanova, the paper's editor. Two police officers who accompanied Yefremov from Tyumen were also killed in the explosion.
The jeep was blown up after turning off the main road near the Russian-controlled village of Kirov, just two-and-a-half miles from the Chechen capital, Grozny.
Yefremov, 41, had arrived in Grozny on May 10; it was his third trip to Chechnya since 1995.
Igor Domnikov, Novaya Gazeta, July 16, 2000, Moscow
Domnikov, 42, a reporter and special-projects editor for the twice-weekly Moscow paper Novaya Gazeta, died two months after being attacked in the entryway of his apartment building in southeastern Moscow.
According to numerous sources, the reporter was attacked on May 12 by an unidentified assailant who hit him repeatedly on the head with a heavy object, presumably a hammer, and left him lying unconscious in a pool of blood, where a neighbor found him.
Domnikov was taken to a hospital with injuries to the skull and brain. After surgery and two months in a coma, the journalist died on July 16 in the Burdenko Neurosurgery Institute in central Moscow.
From the very beginning, Domnikov's colleagues and the police were certain the attack was related to his professional activity or that of the newspaper's. It was also believed for a while that the assailant mistook Domnikov, who covers social and cultural issues, for a Novaya Gazeta investigative reporter named Oleg Sultanov, who lives in the same building. Sultanov claimed to have received threats from the Federal Security Service in January for his reporting on corruption in the Russian oil industry.
According to the paper's editorial staff, the Interior Ministry was actively investigating the brutal attack and promised Domnikov's colleagues to finish the investigation by the end of the summer if the latter agreed not to interfere or disclose any details of the case to the public. However, in early fall, the police downgraded the case's high-priority status and "archived" it, as allowed by law for cases unresolved within three-months.
Domnikov's colleagues were not informed about the downgrade. As they explained to CPJ, "archiving" does not mean outright closure of the investigation: The case may be reopened if new information emerges, but this did not appear likely at year's end.
Sierra Leone: 3
Saoman Conteh, New Tablet, May 8, 2000, Freetown
Conteh, a journalist with the independent weekly New Tablet, was shot dead while covering a spontaneous demonstration outside the Freetown residence of Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebel leader Foday Sankoh.
Sankoh's bodyguards opened fire on a crowd of people who were protesting the RUF's May 3 abduction of United Nations peacekeepers. The fusillade killed at least 19 people. Conteh, who was shot in the chest and the leg, fell to the ground and was suffocated by the stampede of people fleeing the gunmen. His body remained on the street for more than 24 hours before being taken to Connaught Hospital in Freetown, where doctors pronounced him dead.
A journalist for nearly three decades, Conteh, 48, had been working for the New Tablet since 1999.
Kurt Schork, Reuters, May 24, 2000, Rogberi Junction
Miguel Gil Moreno de Mora, The Associated Press, May 24, 2000, Rogberi Junction
Schork, veteran Reuters coresspondent, and Moreno de Mora, Associated Press cameraman, were killed in an ambush by rebels of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF).
Schork, 53, and Moreno de Mora, 32, were traveling in two vehicles with soldiers from the Sierra Leone Army (SLA) when RUF forces opened fire on them east of Rogberi Junction, some 54 miles from the capital, Freetown. The ambush took place in an area that had recently been the scene of fierce fighting between rebels and pro-government forces.
Four SLA soldiers were also killed in the incident, while two other Reuters journalists, cameraman Mark Chisholm and photographer Yannis Behrakis, were wounded. Chisholm and Behrakis received first-aid treatment at a local hospital run by United Nations peacekeepers before they were evacuated to Indian Field Hospital in Freetown, where they were treated for minor injuries.
Somalia: 1
Ahmed Kafi Awale, Radio of the Somali People, January 26, 2000, Mogadishu
Awale, a reporter for the private station Radio of the Somali People, owned by the South
Mogadishu warlord Hussein Mohamed Aidid, was killed by a stray bullet while on assignment at Bakara market in the Somali capital, Mogadishu. Three other people were killed during the incident, and seven others were badly injured when thieves escaping from market guards shot at random to clear their way.
Spain: 1
José Luis López de la Calle, El Mundo, May 7, 2000, Andoain
López de la Calle, a regular contributor to the Basque edition of the Madrid-based daily
El Mundo, was shot dead outside his home in Andoain. Though no arrests were made, Interior Ministry officials attributed the crime to the Basque separatist group ETA. López de la Calle, 63, was an outspoken critic of ETA's violent campaign for independence and had received death threats from the group in the past.
His killing came several weeks after two Spanish journalists received letter bombs, which were safely disarmed by the police, and another bomb exploded at the home of a third journalist. Officials blamed ETA for all the attacks.
Sri Lanka: 1
Mylvaganam Nimalarajan, BBC, Virakesari, Ravaya, October 19, 2000, Jaffna
On the night of October 19, a group of unidentified gunmen approached the home of Nimalarajan, a Jaffna-based journalist who reported for various news organizations, including the BBC's Tamil and Sinhala-language services, the Tamil-language daily Virakesari, and the Sinhala-language weekly Ravaya.
The assailants shot the journalist through the window of his study, where he was working on an article, and threw a grenade into the home before fleeing the premises. The attack occurred during curfew hours in a high-security zone in central Jaffna town. Army officers were summoned to the house, and they took the journalist to Jaffna Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. The journalist's parents and his 11-year-old nephew were seriously injured in the attack.
Local journalists suspect that Nimalarajan's reporting on vote-rigging and intimidation in Jaffna during the recent parliamentary elections may have led to his murder.
Sri Lankan president Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga ordered defense authorities to launch an immediate inquiry into the assassination. In an October 20 letter, CPJ urged the president to ensure that the investigation was pursued vigorously and its findings made public.
Police failed to respond to repeated requests for information regarding the status of the investigation, which appeared to have stalled by year's end.
Ukraine: 1
Georgy Gongadze, Ukrainska Pravda, September 16, 2000, Kyiv
Gongadze, editor of the news Web site Ukrainska Pravda (www.pravda.com.ua), which often featured critical articles about President Leonid Kuchma and other Ukrainian government officials, disappeared in Kyiv. In late November, a massive political scandal erupted after an opposition leader released an audiotape that seemed to implicate Kuchma and two senior aides in Gongadze's disappearance.
Gongadze, 31, left the home of a colleague at 10:20 p.m. to meet his wife and two young children at home. He never arrived. The police launched an investigation, while the Ukrainian Parliament formed a special commission to examine the case.
Shortly after Gongadze disappeared, Deputy Interior Minister Mykola Dzhyha announced that authorities were considering three possible scenarios: that Gongadze had staged his own abduction, that he had been involved in an accident, or that the abduction was related to his journalism.
On September 19, however, Dzhyha announced that the police had ruled out any political motive. The police then suggested that the disappearance was related to Gongadze's personal life. CPJ expressed serious doubts about the credibility of the investigation in a September 25 letter to President Kuchma.
On the night of November 2-3, a farmer discovered a headless corpse outside the town of
Tarashcha, and local journalists immediately speculated that it might be Gongadze's. On
November 6, regional officials visited Tarashcha to conduct an investigation.
The officials quickly announced that the advanced decomposition of the body placed the time of death well before the date of Gongadze's disappearance. They did not ask anyone from the journalist's family to identify the body, however. Despite the local coroner's pleas to have the body removed, it remained in an unrefrigerated morgue in Tarashcha, where it continued to decompose.
Persistent rumors of a cover-up led several of Gongadze's colleagues to visit Tarashcha on November 15. Based on jewelry found at the scene and an X-ray of the corpse's hand, which showed an old shrapnel injury matching one that Gongadze had suffered while covering the conflict in Abkhazia, a region of Georgia, they concluded that the corpse was indeed Gongadze's.
The local coroner issued a death certificate to the group confirming their findings and offered to turn over the body to them. But when the journalists returned to the morgue with a car and a coffin, they found that the state prosecutor had already removed the corpse and transported it to Kyiv for DNA testing. In late November, the prosecutor's office launched a half-hearted effort to secure blood samples from Gongadze's family, only obtaining the samples in mid-December.
On November 28, Oleksandr Moroz, the leader of the Socialist Party and a longtime rival of President Kuchma, released tape recordings of what he claimed were conversations between Kuchma, Presidential Chief of Staff Vladimir Litvin, and Interior Minister Yury Kravchenko. On the tape, three male voices discuss various ways of "dealing" with Gongadze. In casual, profanity-laced tones, they discuss undercover surveillance, deporting him back to his native Georgia, prosecuting him in Ukraine, or having a group of Chechens kidnap him. The speakers are clearly concerned about Gongadze's journalism. "You give me this same one at Ukrainska Pravda and we will start to decide what to do with him," one says. "He's simply gone too far."
Moroz claimed he had received the tapes in mid-October from an unnamed former officer of the Special Communication Detachment of Ukraine's State Security Service (SBU) who was responsible for communications security within President Kuchma's office, the Kyiv Post reported. Moroz said he had delayed releasing the tapes until late November in order to have them authenticated by foreign experts, and to give the source's family time to leave the country.
In early December, three Ukrainian Parliament deputies traveled to an undisclosed European Union country and videotaped their meeting with the officer, who was identified as Mykola Melnychenko, a 34-year-old major. On the video, Major Melnychenko claims that he secretly recorded Kuchma's conversations by placing a digital audio recorder under a sofa in the president's office. Melnychenko justifies his actions by saying, "I gave my oath of allegiance to Ukraine, to the people of Ukraine. I did not break my oath. I did not swear allegiance to Kuchma to perform his criminal orders."
At year's end, the tapes had not yet been authenticated by a neutral third party. But it seemed credible for several reasons, according to a CPJ source close to the investigation who did not wish to be identified. The informal manner of speaking and frequent use of expletives match Kuchma's conversational style. Also, researchers from the Dutch Institute of Applied Scientific Research, hired by a Dutch tabloid to evaluate the tapes, concluded that the recordings had not been doctored, although they were unable to identify the voices conclusively, the Kyiv Post reported. And while Moroz was a bitter rival of Kuchma, he was known to be relatively cautious in making accusations against other politicians, particularly the president.
Kuchma flatly denied that he had anything to do with Gongadze's disappearance and described the Moroz tape as a "provocation," according to the ITAR-TASS news agency.
The government's agitated response to the scandal only fueled public suspicion. A presidential spokesman denied Moroz's allegations on the same day that he made them. Meanwhile, a local prosecutor announced he was launching a criminal investigation into Moroz's alleged "insults and slander" against President Kuchma.
On December 4, just as the allegations against Kuchma were gaining momentum, Kyiv police announced that Gongadze had died in an attempted robbery. But by then, public confidence in the investigation had dwindled to a point where some opposition politicians were even questioning whether the body being examined in Kyiv was the same corpse that was found in Tarashcha.
On December 18, Gongadze's wife, Myroslava, identified the jewelry found by the body in Tarashcha as belonging to her husband. And although the corpse was badly decomposed, she claimed to recognize her husband's foot.
In late December, German forensic experts determined that the corpse found in Tarashcha was indeed Gongadze's, according to the German news agency Deutsche Presse-Agentur. The Ukrainian government promised to conduct DNA tests but had not yet done so by early January.
Uruguay: 1
Julio César Da Rosa, Radio del Centro, February 24, 2000, Baltasar Brum
Da Rosa, owner and editor of the independent station Radio del Centro, was murdered by former local official Carmelo Nery Colombo, who shot the journalist and then turned the weapon on himself.
Radio del Centro broadcasts from Baltasar Brum, an isolated village in the northern municipality of Artigas. Colombo served as secretary of the Baltasar Brum administrative board in 1998-1999 and was running for re-election at the time of the murder.
Da Rosa's widow, Euda Fernández Machado, told CPJ that Colombo was angered by Da Rosa's suggestion, in a February 23 broadcast, that he was unfit to run for public office. A supermarket owner with heavy debts, Colombo was being investigated for excessive spending during his previous stint as secretary of the administrative board.
Immediately after the February 23 broadcast, Colombo called Da Rosa and demanded airtime to defend himself, Fernández said. Da Rosa invited him to the studio for a radio appearance at noon on February 24. No one else was present when Colombo arrived. Colombo shot Da Rosa in the heart and then shot himself in the right temple. Da Rosa's face was bruised, Fernández said, indicating a scuffle might have taken place before the shooting.
On March 8, CPJ published an alert about Da Rosa's murder.
María Elena Salinas, free-lancer, March 5, 2000, Antioquia
Salinas, a free-lance journalist, was found dead along with two members of the leftist National Liberation Army (ELN). All three were killed during a confrontation with army troops in the central department of Antioquia.
According to local sources, Salinas had studied journalism and was investigating armed conflicts in the Antioquia region at the time of her death. But she was apparently not employed by a media organization, and her family did not clarify whether or not she was working as a journalist when she died.
A local source told CPJ that Salinas had previously been accused of having links with the ELN, but that the charge was dismissed for lack of evidence.
Because of the uncertainty surrounding her case, CPJ has been unable to confirm whether Salinas was killed for her work as a journalist.
Marisol Revelo Barón, former journalist, July 4, 2000, Tumaco
Revelo, a social worker and former journalist, was shot dead at her home on La Playa
Avenue in Tumaco, a town in the southwestern department of Nariño.
Two men on a motorcycle arrived at Revelo's house at around 7:30 p.m., according to local sources. One kept the motorcycle's engine running, while the other knocked on the journalist's door. When Revelo came to the door, the attacker fired five shots, hitting her three times and killing her instantly.
Revelo had been a journalist for most of her career, but a year and a half before her death she took a job at the Regional Autonomous Corporation of Nariño (Corponariño), a state-run environmental agency. Before joining Corponariño, she worked as a news director for Radio Mira, an affiliate of the Radio Caracol network in Tumaco, and as a local reporter for TV channels Teletumaco and Impacto Televisión.
At year's end, the police continued to investigate Revelo's murder but had made no statement about a possible motive.
Carlos José Restrepo Rocha, TanGente, El Día, September 9, 2000, San Luis
Restrepo Rocha, 44, a community leader who also ran two small regional publications, TanGente and El Día, was kidnapped and killed by alleged members of right-wing paramilitary forces in San Luis, a municipality in the central department of Tolima, according to CPJ sources and local press reports.
At around 4 p.m., at least 10 gunmen who identified themselves as members of the paramilitary United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) burst into a community meeting at the Cucuana dam and abducted Restrepo Rocha. His body was found a few hours later in a rural area of San Luis. He had been shot 11 times in the head and throat; flyers from the AUC were found next to his body, according to CPJ sources.
Restrepo Rocha was a former member of the M-19 guerrilla group. After re-entering civilian life in 1990, he became publisher of the monthly TanGente and editor of the newspaper El Día. He was also one of the founders of the local TV channel "Señal San Luis" and was running as an independent for a seat on the San Luis Municipal Council. TanGente covered local issues, including development projects, sports, and culture. El Día was a specialized publication sponsored by the local water company, Usocoello. It ran stories on water rates, irrigation projects, and other company issues.
CPJ sources said Restrepo Rocha had not requested protection from local police, and that the journalist's relatives did not know of any threats against him. Police said the motive for Restrepo Rocha's killing was unclear.
Guillermo León Agudelo, La Voz de la Selva, November 30, 2000, Florencia
Radio journalist Agudelo was stabbed to death by two men who had broken into his home in Florencia, a city in the southern Colombian province of Caquetá, police said.
Police initially believed that Agudelo, 47, had been killed during a robbery attempt but later concluded that he had been murdered, with five knife wounds to the chest, after refusing an extortion demand. A police spokesman ruled out any connection between the murder and Agudelo's work as a journalist for the local radio station La Voz De La Selva (Voice Of The Jungle), an affiliate of the nationwide Caracol radio network.
Florencia was formerly a stronghold of the Marxist guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). More recently, the town has become a power base for right-wing paramilitary groups. Both sides regularly resort to extortion, as do common criminals.
Agudelo, a self-taught journalist, had formerly headed operations at another local radio station in Florencia, Ondas del Orteguaza, which is linked to the national Todelar network. In addition to his journalistic work, he also drove a taxi in Florencia, police said.
Another Florencia-based journalist said Agudelo had once been the director of the town prison and had also served a term as mayor of the town of Montanita, just east of Florencia. The journalist claimed that Agudelo often promoted various political interests on his radio shows. Agudelo was formerly a member of the Conservative Party but later developed close links with the local Liberal Party.
CPJ circulated an alert about the murder on December 14. No arrests had been made at year's end.
Georgia: 1
Antonio Russo, Radio Radicale, October 16, 2000, Ujarma
Russo, 40, was found dead by the side of a mountain road near the village of Ujarma, some 40 kilometers (25 miles) east of the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, according to local and international press reports. He worked for the Italian station Radio Radicale, based in Rome, and was affiliated with the Transnational Radical Party.
Initially, investigators found no injuries or other traces of violence on Russo's body. But an autopsy revealed that Russo had died from multiple broken ribs and lung injuries, inflicted by a blow to the chest from a dull object. Georgian forensic experts found that the journalist had died at approximately 2 a.m. on the morning of October 16.
When police found Russo's body some 14 hours later, they also recovered a rope that had evidently been taken from the journalist's apartment and then used to tie him up. According to press reports, the apartment had been searched and looted; Russo's laptop computer, mobile telephone, video camera, and three videotapes were missing.
Georgian authorities did not rule out the theory that Russo had been killed because of his journalism. At least one official suggested that an unnamed "foreign intelligence service" played a role in his death, implying that Russian authorities were unhappy about Russo's frequent contacts with Chechen rebel forces. According to some reports, he planned to return to Italy at the end of October with video footage that allegedly showed Russian forces in Chechnya using weapons that violated international humanitarian conventions.
However, these accusations may simply reflect animosity between Russia and Georgia over the latter's alleged support for the Chechens. Some officials also speculated that Russo might have died as the result of a robbery.
As a foreign correspondent for Radio Radicale, Russo had previously covered conflicts in Algeria, Burundi, Rwanda, Colombia, Bosnia, and Kosovo. Although Russian authorities denied him an entry visa to Chechnya, Russo entered the breakaway republic illegally on several occasions to interview Chechen military commanders and former Chechen president Aslan Maskhadov.
Haiti: 1
Gérard Denoze, Radio Plus, December 15, 2000, Port-au-Prince
Two gunmen shot and killed Denoze, a sports presenter for the station Radio Plus, in the Port-au-Prince suburb of Carrefour.
The director of Radio Plus, Jean Lucien Prussien, told CPJ that Denoze had taken a communal taxi at around 3:30 or 3:45 p.m. heading toward his home in Carrefour. About a mile from Denoze's house, the two gunmen jumped on the taxi and told all the passengers to get off.
When Denoze moved to comply, the gunmen told him, "You have to stop, mister, it's you we need." They shot him in the neck, stomach, and abdomen and then fled the scene, shooting in the air to keep bystanders at a distance. The police arrived less than an hour later and detained the taxi driver, who had fled the scene but returned to claim his vehicle, for questioning. A street vendor witnessed the crime, according to Prussien.
Denoze had worked with Radio Plus since 1997. He presented a sports program every morning except Sunday, when he commented on live sporting events. His work had no political content whatsoever, according to Prussien.
The director declined to speculate on the motive for the killing. According to other sources, however, Denoze was rumored to have received threats after he allegedly embezzled money from a sports tournament that he had helped organize.
India: 3
Adhir Rai, free-lancer, March 18, 2000, Deoghar, Jharkand
Rai, a free-lance journalist, was murdered while on assignment, according to a brief report published in the English-language newspaper The Hindu. In addition to serving as the president of the Deoghar Working Journalists Union, Rai was also a lecturer at a local college, according to the paper.
V. Selvaraj, Nakkeeran, July 31, 2000, Perambalur, Tamil Nadu
Selvaraj, a reporter for the Tamil-language biweekly Nakkeeran, was murdered in his hometown of Perambalur, Tamil Nadu, by a gang of about a dozen men who attacked him with knives and sickles.
At around 10:20 p.m., the group approached Selvaraj near the bus station in Perambalur and hacked him to death. He died instantly from more than 20 serious lacerations all over his body, according to sources at Nakkeeran, a well-respected news magazine known for its investigative reports, which have often exposed cases of government corruption.
Nakkeeran editor R. Gopal suspected that Selvaraj may have been murdered for writing about official malfeasance in the nearby town of Tiruchi, where the journalist was based. Other local journalists thought the murder was the result of a personal quarrel.
The Crime Branch Central Investigation Department, the state's top-level investigative agency, was handling the investigatio, but had not reported any significant progress at year's end.
Thounaojam Brajamani Singh, Manipur News, August 20, 2000, Imphal, Manipur
Brajamani, editor of the English-language daily Manipur News, was assassinated in Imphal, the capital of Manipur State.
At around 10:20 p.m., Brajamani was traveling home by scooter when two men, also riding a scooter, forced him to stop on Meino Leirak road, in the Sagolband area of Imphal. The editor was accompanied by Henry Salam, a computer operator, whom the assassins told to stand back and look away.
Brajamani was then shot twice in the back of the head at point-blank range, according to CPJ sources in Manipur.
On August 15, just days before the murder, an anonymous caller had threatened the editor's daughter over the phone, warning her to prepare for her father's funeral. On August 17, Brajamani wrote a brief news item about the threat in his paper. The next day, he published an editorial inviting the caller to contact him again so that any "conflicts of mind . . . may be negotiated," according to a report by the Press Trust of India news agency.
Brajamani was known as the "pioneer of English journalism in Manipur," one local journalist told Agence France-Presse. He was also an activist who helped found the Journalists Front Manipur to unite the often fractious community of local journalists.
In an August 21 letter to Indian prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, CPJ urged a prompt and thorough investigation of the murder, whose motive remained unclear at year's end.
Kenya: 1
Samuel Nduati, Citizen Radio, October 27, 2000, Nairobi
Nduati, A veteran journalist who had moved to Citizen Radio from the Nation group of newspapers, was shot dead by two gunmen in the entrance to his home in Nairobi. Nduati was watching television with his family when they heard a disturbance at the front door. When his wife went to investigate, two armed men ordered her back into the house. Nduati was shot in the chest when he came out to find his wife. He died on the spot.
The intruders stole money, a television, a VCR, stereo equipment, and some clothes. Police classified the crime as a robbery that ended in murder, but local journalists suspected the slaying could have been connected to Kenya's volatile coffee industry.
Nduati, an experienced business editor, had covered corruption scandals at the Coffee Board of Kenya, a government monopoly that buys the entire coffee harvest from Kenyan farmers and then markets it to the world. Disputes over control of the coffee industry have turned violent in recent years, with at least one head of a coffee cooperative dying under mysterious circumstances.
Mexico: 2
Pablo Pineda, La Opinión, April 9, 2000, Matamoros
At approximately 2:45 a.m., U.S. Border Patrol agents found the body of Pineda, a reporter and photographer for the Mexican newspaper La Opinión, in Los Indios, just outside Harlingen, Texas.
The agents had watched two people cross the Rio Grande carrying a bundle wrapped in a white sheet, which they deposited on the U.S. bank of the river. When no one came to retrieve the bundle, the officers investigated and found Pineda's body. According to news reports, the journalist had been shot in the back of the head with a 9 mm pistol.
One of Pineda's colleagues told CPJ that the 38-year-old journalist covered the police beat and had also written on drug trafficking in the region. In December 1999, Pineda survived an assassination attempt near his home. The gunman was never caught, although Pineda filed a complaint with the local police. He had worked for La Opinión, published in the border city of Matamoros, for eight months prior to his death.
CPJ circulated an alert about Pineda's murder on April 13. Subsequently, local press reports hinted that the journalist had been involved in the local drug trade, although one CPJ source suggested that drug traffickers might have spread this rumor to discredit Pineda. The murder investigation remained stalled at year's end.
José Ramírez Puente, Radio Net, April 28, 2000, Ciudad Juárez
Ramírez, host of a popular news program in the town of Ciudad Juárez, across the border from El Paso, Texas, was found stabbed to death in his car.
A 29-year-old reporter with the private station Radio Net, Ramírez had been stabbed more than 30 times, according to CPJ sources and local press accounts. The murder was believed to have taken place earlier on the night Ramírez's body was discovered.
Police later announced that they had found eight bags of marijuana in the trunk of Ramírez's car. The journalist's colleagues and Ciudad Juárez mayor Gustavo Elizondo publicly vouched for Ramírez's integrity, however, and said there was no indication that he had been involved in illicit activity. Local journalists claimed the drugs had been planted, perhaps by the killer or killers, to suggest that Ramírez was involved in the drug trade.
Ramírez began his career with the radio stations 860 and FM Globo. He then worked as a print reporter with the Ciudad Juárez daily El Norte before taking a job with Radio Net. His daily news show, "Juárez Hoy," had been on the air for about a month when he died. Broadcast from Monday to Friday, the hour-long program featured breaking news and interviews with politicians, business leaders, and others.
While the case was referred to the Federal Attorney's Office, which handles all drug-related offenses, there was also speculation that Ramírez was killed for his coverage of the local sex industry. And there was some reason to suspect that he was not killed for his journalism, since local sources also suggested that he had worked as a government informant.
CPJ published an alert about the murder on May 1. At year's end, a government spokesman in Ciudad Juárez declined to release any information about the investigation but expressed confidence that the case would be solved.
Nepal: 1
Shambhu Patel, Radio Nepal, February 5, 2000, Rautahat
Patel, a reporter for Radio Nepal and vice president of the Nepal Press Union's Rautahat branch, was shot on January 23 at his home in Rautahat District. He was taken immediately to Bir Hospital, where he died on February 5.
At about 8 p.m. on January 23, two men came to Patel's home claiming to need help with a court case, Patel's wife, Kiran Devi Patel, told the Kathmandu Post. When Patel asked them to return the following day, one of them began firing his gun. According to Kiran Devi Patel, the two gunmen had been following her husband earlier in the day.
On January 24, police announced that they had arrested two suspects.
However, two years later, there has been little progress in the case. On February 14, 2002, the Rautahat District Court issued an order to remand local politician Jaya Prakash Kausal to custody on suspicion of involvement in the murder, according to the Center for Human Rights and Democratic Studies. Kausal is a member of the ruling Nepali Congress and is an elected member of the District Development Committee of Rautahat. Police accused him of organizing Patel's murder.
The motive for Patel's killing remains clear. He had close links with the opposition United Marxist and Leninist Party, and some local sources believe he may have been killed over a political dispute.
Palestinian National Authority: 1
Aziz Al-Tineh, WAFA, October 28, 2000, Bethlehem
On or about October 18, Al-Tineh, a reporter with the official Palestinian National Authority (PNA) news agency WAFA, was seriously wounded in an explosion at a PNA security post in the West Bank city of Bethlehem. The source of the explosion was unclear, but CPJ sources said it was an accidental blast and not the result of a hostile act, such as shelling.
On October 28, Al-Tineh died from his injuries at a hospital in Amman, Jordan.
Some journalists reported that Al-Tineh was on assignment when he was wounded. A number of CPJ sources, however, said the journalist had been paying a social visit to his brother, who apparently worked at the security post, when the explosion occurred.
Russia: 4
Sergey Novikov, Radio Vesna, July 26, 2000, Smolensk
Novikov, 36, owner of the only independent radio station in Smolensk, was shot and killed at around 9:00 p.m. in the stairwell of his apartment building. The killer shot him four times and then escaped through a back door.
Radio Vesna often criticized the government of Smolensk Province. On July 23, Novikov took part in a television panel that discussed the alleged corruption of the provincial deputy governor. Novikov's employees believed his murder was politically motivated. He reportedly received death threats earlier in the year after announcing his intent to run for the provincial governorship.
Novikov was also one of the most successful businesspeople in the region, serving on the board of directors of a local glass-making factory.
At year's end, a Radio Vesna staff member told CPJ that the killer remained at large, that the investigation was continuing, and that police had not yet determined a motive.
Iskandar Khatloni, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, September 21, 2000, Moscow
Khatloni, a reporter for the Tajik-language service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), was attacked late at night in his Moscow apartment by an unknown, axe-wielding assailant. The door of his apartment was not damaged, indicating there was no forced entry and that the journalist might have known his attacker.
Khatloni, 46, was struck twice in the head, according to RFE/RL's Moscow bureau. He then stumbled onto the street and collapsed and was later found by a passerby. The journalist died later that night in Moscow's Botkin Hospital. Local police opened a murder investigation but had made little progress at year's end.
Khatloni had worked since 1996 as a Moscow-based journalist for the Tajik service of the U.S.-funded RFE/RL, which broadcasts daily news programming to Tajikistan.
A RFE/RL spokeswoman said that at the time of his death, Khatloni had been working on stories about the Russian military's human-rights abuses in Chechnya. Earlier in the year, a senior official in Russia's Media Ministry charged that RFE/RL was "hostile to our state."
However, Khatloni's colleagues also speculated that the journalist might have been killed because of unpaid debts, or in a random hate crime.
Sergey Ivanov, Lada-TV, October 3, 2000, Togliatti
At around 10 p.m., unknown gunmen killed Ivanov, the director of the largest independent television company in Togliatti, a town in Samara Province, in front of his apartment building. Ivanov was shot five times in the head and chest.
Lada-TV, which the 30-year-old Ivanov had headed since 1993, was a significant player on the local political scene. At year's end, investigators had not ruled out a possible commercial or programming dispute as motivation for the murder. Station staffers told CPJ that they had no idea about the motive.
Adam Tepsurgayev, Reuters, November 21, 2000, Chechnya
Tepsurgayev, a 24-year-old Chechen cameraman, was shot dead at a neighbor's house in the village of Alkhan-Kala. His brother Ali was wounded in the leg during the attack.
A Russian government spokesman blamed Chechen guerrillas for the murder. The gunmen reportedly speoke Chechen, but local residents said the militants had no reason to kill the cameraman.
During the first Chechen war (1994-1996), Tepsurgayev worked as a driver and fixer for foreign journalists. Later, he started shooting footage from the front lines of the conflict between Russian troops and separatist guerrillas. Reuters' Moscow bureau chief, Martin Nesirky, described him as an "irregular contributor." While most of Reuters' footage from Chechnya in 2000 was credited to Tepsurgayev, including shots of Chechen field commander Shamil Basayev having his foot amputated, he had not worked for Reuters in the six months before he died.
Ukraine: 1
Yuliy Mazur, Yug, November 30, 2000, Odessa
Mazur, the 63-year-old editor of the independent Russian-Ukrainian daily Yug, was found late at night near his house in Odessa. He died before an ambulance could take him to the hospital. Forensic experts attributed the death to "ethyl alcohol intoxication," Mazur's colleagues told the Ukrainian news agency UNIAN.
However, Mazur's colleagues suspected their editor had been poisoned. They said he was a teetotaler who had recently received telephone death threats, which they believed were provoked by Yug articles about corruption in local law-enforcement agencies. On December 3, however, the local police chief told journalists that he could see "nothing criminal in Yuliy Mazur's death."
United States: 1
James Edwin Richards, Neighborhood News, October 18, 2000
Richards, the editor of an e-mail newsletter covering the high-crime Oakwood neighborhood of Venice, California, was shot to death at around 4:15 a.m while walking near his house.
Neighborhood News reported on petty theft, drug sales, and other local crimes. Richards was also a longtime community activist and block captain for his community's Model Neighborhood Program.
Press reports quoted Venice councilwoman Ruth Galanter as saying that Richards's murder "appears to have been a straightforward assassination." She added that Richards had made many enemies in the course of his work as a journalist and activist.
At the time of his murder, Los Angeles Police Department officers said that they had no suspects and were not sure about the motive for the crime.
Yugoslavia: 1
Shefki Popova, Rilindja, September 10, 2000, Kosovo
Popova, a well-known, ethnic Albanian journalist, was shot and killed in his hometown of Vucitrn, 12 miles northwest of Pristina, according to the United Nations police Web site (www.civpol.org). Two unidentified men were seen running away after the shooting, which occurred near the town's municipal office building at 11:25 p.m.
Popova, 50, died shortly after arriving at a nearby hospital run by United Arab Emirates peacekeeping forces. It was unclear whether Popova's death related to his work at the Albanian-language daily Rilindja. During the last 26 years, Popova had contributed numerous articles to Rilindja and had also reported for the newspaper's radio station.
A colleague of Popova's at Rilindja told CPJ that Popova had written about war crimes committed in Kosovo by ethnic Serbs and that he believed some of the Serbs involved may have killed Popova in retribution.
However, other sources pointed out that Popova was also active in local politics, which often feature killings motivated by rivalry between different ethnic Albanian parties. At the time of his death, he was running in municipal elections in Vucitrn as a candidate of the Social Democratic Party of Kosovo. Finally, cooperation with the international community is a very sensitive issue within the ethnic Albanian community. Some local sources speculated that Popova might have been killed for setting up meetings between international officials and nongovernmental organizations in Vucitrn.